Using in-store LED lighting, the system sends information such as special offers to customers' smartphones depending on their location in the store. Customers will have to download a dedicated app in order to take advantage of the system, but they will then be able to use the dense network of LEDs as a positioning grid, receiving information related to their particular position as they wander around picking up groceries.

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Pricey but lovable bulbs leave us incapable of going back to normal lighting.

The app can also work like a personal shopper, directing customers to aisles where they can find specific ingredients. Shoppers will be given options, so if they want to buy a prepackaged product—a cake, perhaps—they can. But if they want to bake one from scratch, the app will plot a route out for them down the aisles to collect ingredients. As shoppers approach products, the system will also introduce them to brands and products that are new in the store, as well as suggest ingredients for alternative recipes.

The system is currently being piloted by retailers in Europe, although Philips hasn't confirmed which chains or countries. It sounds like an interesting idea, although it's not quite clear how the lighting system will deal with seriously crowded shops. If anyone from the Philips research team has been in Sainsbury's on Christmas Eve, they'll know that directing all those people around one another using any kind of GPS-based system is bound to end in traffic jams and road rage.